


A Royal Love Affair

by Lediona



Series: A Royal Night Out [3]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: (of sorts), Alternate Universe - Royalty, M/M, Magazine Article, Reminiscing, Retirementlock, True Love, a royal night out - Freeform, commoner!John, prince!Sherlock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-15
Updated: 2019-09-15
Packaged: 2020-10-19 11:57:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20656877
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lediona/pseuds/Lediona
Summary: Their story begins with a chance meeting on V-E Day and weaves through the next six decades as one of the most enduring - and secretive - of royal romances. But as Prince William and his long-time partner John Watson tellVanity Fairabout their meet cute, the difficulty of maintaining a same-sex relationship before decriminalisation, and their recent commitment ceremony, it is clear these two have discovered the secret to a lifetime of happiness together.





	A Royal Love Affair

**Author's Note:**

> Because I can never say no to anything, the second people started requesting a royal wedding in the comments of the previous fic in this series, I knew I had to write something. This may not be what you were expecting, but I hope it is satisfying nonetheless.
> 
> This will be the last installment for this series and I just want to say that it has been an absolute joy to write. It still feels rather unbelievable that I have managed to write not one but two multi-chapter fics and that people have expressed such joy in reading them. That makes me happier than I can say! You're all wonderful and thank you so much for all the love you've given me throughout this journey into writing fic. 
> 
> Thanks to @eternaljohnlock for betaing this one! xx

Cover Story | March 2006  
A Royal Love Affair

Their story begins with a chance meeting on V-E Day and weaves through the next six decades as one of the most enduring - and secretive - of royal romances. But as Prince William and his long-time partner John Watson tell _Vanity Fair_ about their meet cute, the difficulty of maintaining a same-sex relationship before decriminalisation, and their recent commitment ceremony, it is clear these two have discovered the secret to a lifetime of happiness together. 

By Lauren Trevelyan  
January 23, 2006

PRINCE William himself answers the door, which is unexpected when one is visiting Kensington Palace, but he seems remarkably disinterested in participating in any of the pomp and circumstance that usually surrounds the royal family. So, on a rainy afternoon in January, I find myself being ushered into an eclectically-decorated but cozy drawing room to meet his other half and, unbeknownst to me, to spend the next four hours being altogether charmed by these two men. 

Prince William Sherlock Scott Holmes Windsor, age 78, or “Sherlock” as John calls him, is spry, observant, and frighteningly intelligent. This combined with his title could come across as intimidating, but there remains a twinkle of humour in his eye as he speaks which allows me to relax on the navy blue velvet sofa. Sherlock reclines in a warm chestnut leather wingback armchair and while he may have greeted me upon my arrival, it is John Watson, age 82, who pours the tea, casting a fond eyeroll at his partner. 

After passing over a cup of tea, John seats himself at the other end of the sofa, near Sherlock’s chair, and they bicker lightheartedly about the biscuits. Seeing them together, it’s easy to recognise the bond that they have, one solidified over 54 years of shared laughter, heartache, and commitment. For all that John might seem like the more unassuming of the pair, there is a strength to him that is undeniable. His soft voice commands attention, from me and, clearly, from Sherlock, whose grey eyes focus on John with attentiveness and adoration whenever he speaks. 

For the last year, Sherlock and John have found themselves the centre of public frenzy, the likes of which the famously media-shy prince has never seen. With help from the palace communications and media teams, they had managed to keep their relationship underwraps for decades until last year, when they appeared in public together to see the Civil Partnership Act receive royal assent by King Philip, as he became the first monarch to grant royal assent in person since his great-great-great grandmother Queen Victoria. Sherlock and John chose to leave Westminster hand-in-hand, sparking headlines in papers around the world the next day. 

When I ask them about that day, Sherlock speaks first. “We had waited long enough,” he declares, intensity radiating off him, and he looks as though he wants to continue with his impassioned speech, but he is interrupted before he can. John continues the story, “When we attended that session of Parliament, we hadn’t gone in with much of a plan. We just wanted to be there to see it happen. Considering what things were like for men like us fifty years ago, it was remarkable to see legislation enacted that would grant us the ability to have our relationship recognised by the state. As we were leaving, it felt right to show solidarity with all those who have fought for equal rights publicly, something we had never been able to do.”

They are also the reason the King decided to buck precedent and appear in person to give his assent, something normally done in private between the monarch and the government Ministers. King Philip is, after all, Sherlock’s nephew, so the King’s support of this Act was not only a sign of progress in a country that tends to favour the traditions and mythology of a fallen empire, but also a heartwarming act of familial support for his beloved uncles. 

Once the now-iconic photo of them leaving Westminster had been published, speculation began on if and when the couple might have their own ceremony when the law was enacted. As is typical with royal couples, the country was gripped by the possibility of this union, and Sherlock and John soon found themselves the topic of conversation at dinner tables, on the covers of tabloid magazines, and having bets placed on them by bookies from Bristol to Aberdeen. “We were far too old for all that,” John says, with a laugh. “I couldn’t understand all the fuss for two doddering old men like us.” To which Sherlock replies, “John has never understood that he is endlessly fascinating, regardless of his advancing age, so of course the public would love him, just as I do.”

With that, I am curious to learn more about how this fairy tale romance started. The royal announcement about their ceremony last year only stated that they had been together for over five decades and gave no clues as to how they met or shared any details of their life together. In speaking with them this afternoon, I feel honoured that they have chosen to open up their home and so bravely share their story with me and the world. 

IN an effort to start at the beginning, I ask about their early lives, but I’m waved away by Sherlock. “That’s not interesting,” he says. I don’t quite know what to say to that proclamation, but John laughs, and agrees. “It’s true. He was a prince and I was a pauper.” “See? Dull,” Sherlock interjects, before continuing, “Everything changed after the war. That’s when life became interesting.” “Well, for one night,” John qualifies, leaning into the innuendo with a cheeky wink. 

They met on 8th May 1945. V-E Day. 

It couldn’t have been more perfect if it was the plot of a film. 

Captain John Watson, aged 23, served in World War II as an army medic attached to the Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers, and he saw active duty in France, eventually suffering a bullet wound to his left shoulder in November 1944, which sent him home to England for good. After months of surgeries and painful rehabilitation, John had reached quite a dark place, struggling to come to terms with the limitations on his body and with what the future might hold for him, if anything. By the time the war was over and V-E Day rolled around, John was in no mood to celebrate, choosing instead to spend the night on his own, holed up in his sister Harriet’s flat. 

But that is where the Fates stepped in. While John was in a taxi bound for Battersea, a stranger jumped in and demanded that the driver take him to Trafalgar Square. "Sherlock had never ridden in a taxi before,” John says with a laugh, patting Sherlock on the hand. “I think he just assumed he could order anyone about and get what he wanted!”

Sherlock, then 19, had received permission from his father King George VI to celebrate the occasion outside of Buckingham Palace, so he and his brother, the future King Henry IX, attended a party at the Ritz. This wasn’t the evening that Sherlock had envisioned, however, and he quickly made his escape through one of the service entrances to the hotel and fled into the night. Unluckily for Sherlock, he was pursued by his chaperone for the evening, Major Gregory Lestrade, which brings us back to the taxi. “He leapt out into the middle of the road in front of my taxi, raised his arm to signal the driver to stop like he was bloody Moses parting the Red Sea, and climbs inside. I was indignant — all I wanted was some privacy and a glass of whisky!" 

  
✢PRINCELY DUTIES✢  
Young Prince William, 1944. “I despised that uniform. Everything about my involvement with the Home Guard was ridiculous, but it was important that I was seen to be doing something, even if I did very little in reality. My turning up to lay sandbags isn’t what won the war.”

  
✢ROUGH AND TUMBLE✢  
Young John Watson, 1939. “I was always getting into scraps when I was a kid. Joining the Army forced me to learn some discipline.”

What followed was a night of adventure for the pair. They eluded the Major, traipsed around Trafalgar Square and over to Knightsbridge ("We shared our first kiss in an alley off Sloane Street," John interjects. "It doesn't sound very romantic, but it was absolutely perfect."), rescued an injured soldier who had been a touch excessive in their jubilation, and danced at a party at Chelsea Barracks, all the while John believing that Sherlock was just a member of the aristocracy. "He introduced himself as Sherlock Holmes, not as Prince William." "It is my name," Sherlock grumbles into his tea. "It's part of your name, darling," John agrees. Eventually the truth of his identity was revealed and in the morning, John found himself having breakfast with the King and Queen at Buckingham Palace.

"It was surreal, but I think Sherlock was more nervous than I was," John says, sipping his tea and allowing Sherlock to take over the narrative. "He conveniently forgot to mention the fact that he had mouthed off to a superior officer earlier in the evening — granted it had been in my defence — and was about to be detained by the Military Police for insubordination. I was only anxious to ensure that Papa would see that he came to no harm because of it. But I needn't have worried about John; he was earnest and funny and my parents were perfectly charmed."

Later that morning, Sherlock had driven John to the Royal Hebert Hospital, where he was due on parade, and the pair said goodbye. "There was really no other possibility at the time," Sherlock says, a faraway look on his face. "Given my station and the fact that it was 1945, neither John nor I could see a way forward, so we contented ourselves with having just that one night. I missed him terribly though."

They would remain apart for seven years, until the Fates intervened again.

AFTER the war, Sherlock attended Oxford University, where he received an Honours degree in chemistry. He also travelled extensively throughout the Commonwealth, performing the odd royal duty here and there, but as he tells it, his main goal for the trip was to escape “Mycroft’s nagging”, but this complaint about his late brother is softened with a sense of routine jest. While Sherlock was globetrotting, John was focused on becoming a doctor, eventually rising in rank to Lieutenant-Colonel and in 1950, taking over command of the Royal Herbert Hospital, the very hospital where he had recovered from his own wounds. 

They led separate lives, but when King George VI passed away in February 1952 and the entire nation mourned the steadfast ruler who had lead them through the war years, their paths drew closer once more. It is clear that Sherlock still finds it difficult to speak of his father’s death, and John picks up their story, effortlessly easing the burden from his partner. 

Alongside the other members of the Armed Forces, John attended the funeral procession for the King in an official capacity, and he was stationed in Piccadilly Circus. He recounts his anxiety as he waited to see Sherlock in person for the first time since V-E Day. "I thought if I saw him that I'd feel better about how he was doing, that it would put my mind at rest, but it was like he was wearing a mask. He was completely blank, and seeing that expression made it worse. I prayed for him to look my way, but that seemed such a silly thought given the size of the crowds. How would he ever recognise me in that sea of faces?"

"But I did see him. He still doubts it, even if all these years," Sherlock says with the air of someone repeating an old argument. "And I told John when we met again that I would know him anywhere." John shakes his head and says, "If I didn't know what happened next, then I would think it a tall tale indeed. I still find it hard to believe."

What happened next occurred two months after the funeral. Upon returning to London, Sherlock wrote to John and asked him to come to tea the following afternoon. Nervous but determined, John presented himself at Kensington Palace, much like I did this afternoon, and never looked back. “It was the 9th of April, 1952,” he recalls. “We had tea, he showed me the gardens, telling me stories of his childhood playing in them, and then he asked me to stay. And I did. There wasn’t really a choice to be made. I wasn’t going to let him out of my life again, and I think he felt exactly the same way.” 

The choice to stay together may have been easy, but that did not mean the path ahead of them was a smooth one. A month before their reunion, a well-publicised trial concluded and Alan Turing was convicted of "gross indecency". Despite the protection provided by Sherlock’s title, it was still essential that their relationship remained secret given the legal and societal views of homosexuality at the time. The pair endeavoured to keep their life together private, telling only those who needed to know and ensuring that any staff were trustworthy and properly vetted. 

It would be another fifteen years before homosexuality was decriminalised in the UK.

Another necessary change was for John to leave his post at the Royal Herbert Hospital. Having committing so many years of his life to the hospital, it was a bittersweet time for him. “After finding Sherlock again, I was happier than I had ever remembered being, but our relationship required us to make personal sacrifices. I understood that, I did, but leaving the hospital was devastating. I felt professionally lost.”

On paper, John was hired as a Royal Doctor based at Kensington Palace, and he maintained a small practice surgery in the building to give authenticity to the cover story, seeing occasional residents and guards as patients. His rooms were connected to Sherlock’s royal apartments, so that he wouldn't raise any suspicions by entering and leaving through the main entrance. “It was ridiculous, and I despised the pretence, but even I could understand the necessity of the arrangement,” Sherlock recalls. “And it provided a reason for him to travel with me when my duties called me abroad. After all, you never know when a prince may require the services of his doctor.”

Together, they travelled to Australia, Fiji, India, Botswana, Malawi, Canada, and the Bahamas. Outside his deployment during the war, this was the first opportunity that John had to see the world. He says, “It was never something I envisioned for myself when I was young. Growing up in the East End of London, international travel was not a possibility. It was a dream to travel with Sherlock, even though we had to be more cautious than usual during those trips.”

OVER the years, they have settled into life together, splitting their time between their apartments at Kensington Palace and Brantridge Park in West Sussex. I am told that they have amassed a large library at Brantridge Park — mostly 19th century medical textbooks, a range of chemistry and physics books the subjects of which I only pretended to understand when Sherlock rattled them off, and an incongruent collection of crime novels. Sherlock keeps bees and John took to hillwalking and he still tries to get out with their two dogs, Milo and Galileo. “Although we’ve slowed down significantly in recent years,” John says, but Sherlock interrupts, “Speak for yourself!”

From an outside perspective, they do seem to have remarkable energy about them, and it’s easy to envision them seeking further adventure for years to come. And it seems fitting that to mark the next stage of their lives they held a ceremony to celebrate their civil partnership at Windsor Castle on 11th December last year. It was a simple ceremony with only family and close friends in attendance. 

I ask how they were feeling about such a special commitment, and to my surprise, Sherlock informs me that “it was mere paperwork. We had committed ourselves to each other forty years ago, the law was just catching up with us.” I look to John for clarification and he grins at me, rising slowly from the sofa and locating a framed photo on the shelves on the opposite wall. He looks down at it fondly and then passes it to me, the simple silver frame heavy in my hands. It contains a slightly faded photograph of Sherlock and John in matching morning suits, tophats clasped under their arms. 

  
✢SAYING I DO✢  
Sherlock and John, 1961. “Sherlock planned every detail, despite it being quite a modest affair. He insisted that we wear matching suits and chose a song for our first dance, which we had that evening alone in our drawing room. He was much less enthused the second time around, however.”

“It was 1961, and Sherlock had suffered a severe bout of flu earlier in the year which spiralled into pneumonia. It was. . . bad,” John recalls, the look in his eye reflecting the unspoken stress of caring for a partner with life-threatening illness. He shakes himself of it and continues, “So after eight years together, we decided to get married, even if it wasn’t legal. To us, it was very real; it was an opportunity to declare how we felt and that whatever happened, we would face it together.”

This secret ceremony took place out in the gardens of Kensington Palace, with only Sherlock’s brother, King Henry IX, and his wife, Queen Margaret, John’s sister, Harriet, and a Watson family friend, Martha Hudson, there to witness the occasion. They celebrate this date, 28th May, as their anniversary and view their more recent ceremony as a public renewal of their vows. 

  
✢A LIFETIME COMMITMENT✢  
Sherlock and John in their Kensington Palace apartment, 2006. 

SHERLOCK and John have been together for nearly 54 years, and yet they have only been out publicly for one. After spending so long ‘in the closet’, it would be understandable for this change to have impacted them quite significantly, but they seem less concerned about their secret being out than they do about the ongoing circus around them. “Neither of us has ever felt comfortable with being the centre of attention,” John says, and then gives his partner a sly look. “Even Sherlock, who cannot pass up an opportunity to show off. But that’s always been on his terms — this hoopla, however, is out of our control. It’s a bit much to take in. We’re fine with the world knowing, but I look forward to the day our names aren’t in the papers anymore.”

This interview, they tell me, is to be the last they give, at least for the near future, and with that knowledge, I decide to end with three questions:

_Of everything you have accomplished in your lives, what makes you most proud?_

Sherlock: “It would be insincere to pretend that my accomplishments bear no relationship to my station, one that I was born into out of sheer luck. Throughout my early years, I didn’t truly appreciate the privileged life I led, but through meeting John, I began to recognise that all the wealth, status or intelligence in the world are meaningless without kindness and generosity. I am proud to have learned that lesson. And I am also proud of my bees. They are a wonder.”

John: “There are many moments throughout my life where I have felt proud. My achievements in my career, both as a doctor and as a soldier, all brought a sense of pride. But for me, they come secondary to the conscious decision to allow myself to be happy. For a long time, particularly after the war, I didn’t think I deserved to be, or that I ever would be again. I went through my days like an automaton, performing well but never fully present. When Sherlock asked me to stay with him, it was a moment of revelation for me. I gave myself permission to really live.”

_Your relationship has lasted the test of time, what do you believe has been the key ingredient to that success?_

Sherlock: “I tend to think of our relationship always as one of inevitability and luminosity, but despite that rather sentimental view, we did not simply bat our eyes at each other for fifty-four years. It took effort, as any relationship does, and what made it easier was remembering that we are on the same side, we are a team, especially in the tougher moments.”

John: “I think I’ll just echo what Sherlock has already said. Like him, I feel like we were meant to be together — he is my one true love — but neither of us are easy men to be with and we have had to learn to forgive the small things and recognise what is truly important, which is each other.”

_What do you love most about each other?_

Sherlock: “I cannot choose just one thing; I love everything about John. I love that his eyes never seem to be the same colour blue. I love the way he clenches his left hand whenever he’s irritated. I love how he still stands at attention, despite having been out of the Army for half a century. I love his delightful giggle. I love that he has chosen to stand by my side as we proceed through this absurd spectacle called life. He is the bravest, kindest and wisest human being I have ever had the good fortune of knowing. He has, throughout our years together, made me a better person, for I am a ridiculous man, redeemed only by the warmth and constancy of his love.”

John: “His utter uniqueness.”

BY the time I gather my things, the rain has stopped. Sherlock and John see me to the front door of their apartment, arms settled easily around each other as they wave me off. It makes me foolishly wish that afternoon tea with them was a standing occasion in my life. However, I’ll just have to settle for the one marvelous afternoon. I hope these two unique men recognise the impact that they will have on changing attitudes and creating greater acceptance for members of the LGBT community, here in the UK and further afield. They are lucky to have found each other and stayed together despite life’s hardships, only growing in their love for each other, and we are lucky to have heard their story.

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. Just a reminder, in case it wasn’t clear here: Sherlock’s father in this story is the historical King George VI. When he passed away in 1952, Mycroft became King Henry IX. Mycroft’s son, Philip inherited the throne in the mid-90s.
> 
> 2\. Because of the timeline of this story, it seemed like a bit of a stretch to set this story in 2014 when legislation for same-sex marriage came into force because Sherlock and John would be in their 90s, so I opted to use the passing of the Civil Partnerships Act as the impetus for this story instead. Who knows, they may have lived to see that day!
> 
> 3\. Brantridge Park is a former royal residence, but it had ceased to be used by the time Sherlock and John would have been living there in this story. Just go with it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brantridge_Park
> 
> 4\. I know that’s a picture of Ian McKellan and Derek Jacobi from _Vicious_, but HUMOUR ME. I love envisioning Sherlock and John in their older years together.
> 
> 5\. I had visions of formatting this to look like a proper _Vanity Fair_ article, but AO3 was not having it, so I hope it makes sense!


End file.
